[Ret] Severely under represented in PvP & PvE, WHY?

Please dont turn this into a QQ or GC flame war thread, our spec isnt great but it isnt as bad as some people make it out to be

hi guys,
As well all know Retribution is far from fully broken and while its not the best spec out there, it has its strengths. Ive played paladin since 3.3 (when i started) which to some will still put me as a baby but what can you do.

I dont fully understand why Retribution is under represented as much as it is. Given the absolutely rediculous 250k+ Burst Dps in PvE and the epic assist and decent peel available in PvP it baffles me why there are no "popular" Retri Paladins. Looking at the rosters of many top end raiding guilds or the line ups of high end arena 3vs3/5vs5 teams or RBG teams, very few if any seem to use Rets.

Its not that hard to see on youtube either, most classes and specs have an assortment of "high-profile" players with endorsements from gaming accessory companies such as razer, etc. Paladins have Hobbs and Athene but neither play ret, until 5.0.1 Vanguardz was a highly rated ret in arena (running Vanguard Cleave; ret, frost, resto) in Cataclysm but it seems recently he has taken to Restoration shaman.

While im not too fussed about the quarrels and opinions of these players its slightly frustrating theres no "advanced" tactics or high rating tricks or tips to come by where a classes like warriors, warlocks and mages have a ridiculous amount of these videos available. Being quite serious about my own capabilities as ret i feel like i am severely limited into placing my skill level in a category where i can understand what im doing wrong and why... because there are no videos about it.

From a PvE standpoint, Rets bring a support package which is unrivaled (hands/off heals/SS/LH/DA/easy off tanking ability via simple RF on/off)

From a PvP standpoint, impossible to snare, many ranged based abilities, can heal themselves and others for stupid amounts when done properly, incredible support for casters or melee given the flexibility of the spells available all with the stupidly outrageous and relyable burst, great against priest/dk/warlock pets locking down their damage or CC using turn evil (no other class can do this as good as ret).

what am i missing? i dont understand this negetive outlook on retribution as a spec.

This leaves me with a couple of feelings
1. Try to create some sort of retribtuion paladin WoW coverage channel on youtube (though its probably been done to death unsuccessfully) to rectify this problem which will be doomed to fail without support from like minded people
2. Keep Searching as i may have simply missed the information im looking for
3. roll holy (JK)

We would've been fine if our off-heals weren't nerfed extremely hard during the middle of the season. 0% benefit from PvP Power + Battle Fatigue shot our support out the window. I think Vanguards did the math at one point, correcting GC that it wasn't a 20% healing nerf but rather something around 46% when taking Battle Fatigue into account.

Our selfless healer Flash crits and WoG crits can save a life here or there, but when someone's training you and you have no bubble or defensives, popping 3 or 4 ~20k FoLs is nothing.

Next season might fix it, but we're generally bursty every 3 - 5 minutes with weak support inbetween.

Games good.

EDIT: can't speak from a PvE standpoint but Rets aren't that bad in that regard.

Our burst is great in pvp. The problem is we can be cc'd for 90% of the duration which makes it pointless. And since our sustained damage is horrible we end up doing nothing for 3mins. Ontop of that our heals have been nerfed into the ground making it so we can't do any real sustained damage or healing between burst cd's.

Our Defense is very weak compared to other melee. We have bubble for 8 seconds and it can be broken by two of the most common classes in rated pvp. Which is why everyone trains the Ret paladin every game.

In Pve we are doing a little bit better, but again, Why take a Ret Paladin when you can take a Warrior or Dk which both do good burst damage but have much better sustained and over all dps?

The sad truth is that Ret is in a bad spot over all right now and Blizzard doesn't seem to care at all.

Our burst is great in pvp. The problem is we can be cc'd for 90% of the duration which makes it pointless. And since our sustained damage is horrible we end up doing nothing for 3mins. Ontop of that our heals have been nerfed into the ground making it so we can't do any real sustained damage or healing between burst cd's.

Our Defense is very weak compared to other melee. We have bubble for 8 seconds and it can be broken by two of the most common classes in rated pvp. Which is why everyone trains the Ret paladin every game.

In Pve we are doing a little bit better, but again, Why take a Ret Paladin when you can take a Warrior or Dk which both do good burst damage but have much better sustained and over all dps?

The sad truth is that Ret is in a bad spot over all right now and Blizzard doesn't seem to care at all.

Blizz does care, pvphealing for ret will be 25% of pvppower and your word of glory's heal an aditionnal 100% (I think) more in 5.2
The only thing I dont like about my ret is the finisher. It used to do so much more relatively in cata than in mop.

Please dont turn this into a QQ or GC flame war thread, our spec isnt great but it isnt as bad as some people make it out to be

hi guys,
As well all know Retribution is far from fully broken and while its not the best spec out there, it has its strengths. Ive played paladin since 3.3 (when i started) which to some will still put me as a baby but what can you do.

I dont fully understand why Retribution is under represented as much as it is. Given the absolutely rediculous 250k+ Burst Dps in PvE and the epic assist and decent peel available in PvP it baffles me why there are no "popular" Retri Paladins. Looking at the rosters of many top end raiding guilds or the line ups of high end arena 3vs3/5vs5 teams or RBG teams, very few if any seem to use Rets.

Its not that hard to see on youtube either, most classes and specs have an assortment of "high-profile" players with endorsements from gaming accessory companies such as razer, etc. Paladins have Hobbs and Athene but neither play ret, until 5.0.1 Vanguardz was a highly rated ret in arena (running Vanguard Cleave; ret, frost, resto) in Cataclysm but it seems recently he has taken to Restoration shaman.

While im not too fussed about the quarrels and opinions of these players its slightly frustrating theres no "advanced" tactics or high rating tricks or tips to come by where a classes like warriors, warlocks and mages have a ridiculous amount of these videos available. Being quite serious about my own capabilities as ret i feel like i am severely limited into placing my skill level in a category where i can understand what im doing wrong and why... because there are no videos about it.

From a PvE standpoint, Rets bring a support package which is unrivaled (hands/off heals/SS/LH/DA/easy off tanking ability via simple RF on/off)

From a PvP standpoint, impossible to snare, many ranged based abilities, can heal themselves and others for stupid amounts when done properly, incredible support for casters or melee given the flexibility of the spells available all with the stupidly outrageous and relyable burst, great against priest/dk/warlock pets locking down their damage or CC using turn evil (no other class can do this as good as ret).

what am i missing? i dont understand this negetive outlook on retribution as a spec.

This leaves me with a couple of feelings
1. Try to create some sort of retribtuion paladin WoW coverage channel on youtube (though its probably been done to death unsuccessfully) to rectify this problem which will be doomed to fail without support from like minded people
2. Keep Searching as i may have simply missed the information im looking for
3. roll holy (JK)

Any thoughts?

Vanadam

This thread will probably be locked because there are already several threads on this topics but... here goes.

1) Our peels are not good, they are in fact the most terrible peels of any melee, most melee have more stuns, occasional roots, snares that don't require a talent or a major dps loss due to using Seal of Justice, better cc and so forth. We have one stun on a long cooldown and a snare; we cannot root, our CC is on the low end even if we take the extremely impractical MoP version of Repent, our damage is high enough to scare the enemy into a defensive posture only about once every 2,3,5 minutes.

2) Burst on 2 min + cooldowns just doesn't cut it anymore, your opponents will always have their trinket if you hit hard only every 2 min, and they can pop their own defensive CDs, the new name of the burst game is burst ever 1 min or less.

3) Ret absolutely never gets any complex, interesting, or unpredictable abilities... every expansion it's; here is some damage, here is some healing, here is some crappy generic cc... have a nice expansion, thanks for the money. Seriously, our big game-changing buff for MoP was ... a snare, something that every other melee has had since Vanilla.

Ret is just balance along very simple lines, some damage, some healing, a few strong abilities on very long cool downs, and that's basically it. The spec is just incredibly underdeveloped, I would have been happy with this version of Ret in Cata or Wrath maybe, but as usual we are one expansion behind the good specs.

---------- Post added 2013-01-28 at 11:28 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Tronux

Blizz does care, pvphealing for ret will be 25% of pvppower and your word of glory's heal an aditionnal 100% (I think) more in 5.2
The only thing I dont like about my ret is the finisher. It used to do so much more relatively in cata than in mop.

Indeed we practically have no finisher, just a bunch of weak and medium power abilities. TV feels more like a filler and Holy power dump than an actual finisher. I don't think there is a single spec out there that has to deal with such mediocre special abilities. And have you noticed how virtually none of out abilities have any secondary effects? TV? no Crusader Strike? no Exorcism? no, Hammer of Wrath? no Divine Storm? used to have a heal which was removed, Judgement? sort of since our raid buff of 4% physical damage is baked into it, but I don't think generic raid buffs/debuffs should count, all other effects from Judgment are via talents. Our only real special effect is from Hammer of the Righteous, which is of course a major dps nerf to use, especially since it doesn't proc our 800 PvP power from CS hits....

PvP-wise, you're right, we're fairly unrepresented, but Vanguards IS still there. He's been playing his enchance shaman quite a bit though. As for PvE, I'm not sure what you're talking about. Literally EVERY top guild has at least one Ret, and many have 2. Just a few examples off the top of my head:
Vodka(Now Exodus)
Charlesx
Flash

PvP-wise, you're right, we're fairly unrepresented, but Vanguards IS still there. He's been playing his enchance shaman quite a bit though. As for PvE, I'm not sure what you're talking about. Literally EVERY top guild has at least one Ret, and many have 2. Just a few examples off the top of my head:
Vodka(Now Exodus)
Charlesx
Flash

Just to name a FEW. Whether or not they're in for every pull, that's a different story. But not many tops guilds don't raid comp stack.

In PvE we work out fairly well. Our sustained is fine, our burst is great, and our survivability (while awful in PvP) works better on bosses and their predictable AoE damage phases and other raid damage.

No, it's pretty much just the fact that anything we Ret can do, Holy can do better. That and compared with other melee, we are still lacking some necessities. Ret is completely fine in PvE, and will only get better with gear scaling.
PvP-wise, we have crap peels, our heals are NOT ok if done properly (are you talking about with Wings up? That really doesn't count.) The Battle Fatigue changed hit us hard, and the PvP power nerf hit us hard. These recent buffs with FoL and half pvp power effectiveness will help, but I'm still pretty damn skeptical about whether or not it will make us viable at all. RBG teams won't replace a warrior, DK, Monk, or rogue with a Ret just for "offheals."
DK's make better target callers. Rogues have infinitely more shut-down capability on a 2nd target, aoe stealth, ability to ninja nodes. Monks are going to have good sustained, good burst, and keep their strong mobility and control. Ret has... decent mobility, and decent heals. Good burst, but you light up like a christmas tree and get feared, deeped, sheeped. Then wait 2 minutes and try again.

TL;DR: Ret has low representation because it's in a crappy state. Just pick up about any other class in PvP right now, and you can feel the difference. When I play my feral, I don't have to worry about being trained incessantly, do more damage, have more cc, and mobility is better. I understand ferals are getting a little of a nerf, but so are a bunch of the other top-tier classes.

Not as bad as PVP. Still not that great when Fury Warriors don't even really have to try that much to beat comparatively-geared Rets.

Oh and Vanguards plays Shadow Priest lately so yeah...

I don't blame him, how long can you stay interested in a simplistic spec that stands relatively still xpack after xpack, while other specs are made more powerful and interesting.

---------- Post added 2013-01-29 at 12:54 AM ----------

Originally Posted by CaptUntsAhts

No, it's pretty much just the fact that anything we Ret can do, Holy can do better. That and compared with other melee, we are still lacking some necessities. Ret is completely fine in PvE, and will only get better with gear scaling.
PvP-wise, we have crap peels, our heals are NOT ok if done properly (are you talking about with Wings up? That really doesn't count.) The Battle Fatigue changed hit us hard, and the PvP power nerf hit us hard. These recent buffs with FoL and half pvp power effectiveness will help, but I'm still pretty damn skeptical about whether or not it will make us viable at all. RBG teams won't replace a warrior, DK, Monk, or rogue with a Ret just for "offheals."
DK's make better target callers. Rogues have infinitely more shut-down capability on a 2nd target, aoe stealth, ability to ninja nodes. Monks are going to have good sustained, good burst, and keep their strong mobility and control. Ret has... decent mobility, and decent heals. Good burst, but you light up like a christmas tree and get feared, deeped, sheeped. Then wait 2 minutes and try again.

TL;DR: Ret has low representation because it's in a crappy state. Just pick up about any other class in PvP right now, and you can feel the difference. When I play my feral, I don't have to worry about being trained incessantly, do more damage, have more cc, and mobility is better. I understand ferals are getting a little of a nerf, but so are a bunch of the other top-tier classes.

The worst part is that even after the developers are forced to admit that Ret is crap as the number roll in, the coming buffs will undoubtedly be boring and straightforward, when in reality Ret absolutely needs a completely new unique ability in order to salvage this expansion.

The worst part is that even after the developers are forced to admit that Ret is crap as the number roll in, the coming buffs will undoubtedly be boring and straightforward, when in reality Ret absolutely needs a completely new unique ability in order to salvage this expansion.

That or make the Ret version of Aura Mastery a much shorter CD and all damage by 25% or something. But yes, the basic idea is that Ret needs some sort of utility, strong utility, that makes it a viable choice vs other melee and something that can't be brought just by bringing a Holy.

Ret is not really under represented in PvE or PvP for that matter. They are even the highest represented paladin spec in PvE

In terms of representation towards other specs:

12 dps specs are less represented than retri paladin in PvE
10 dps specs are more represented than retri paladin in PvE

Though seeing as paladin are the most evenly represented class ( all 3 specs are quite even ), that is not really suprising that retri paladins are not in the top represented specs as so many paladins play both holy and prot. Still that being said, more rets and holys and prots.

In PvP, only 7 specs are more represented than retri paladins.
That is, 26 specs that are LESS represented than retris. So they are not really under represented there either.

Volun-told - A supposedly optional event, award, assignment, or activity in which a person (or persons) are required to attend either by persons-in-charge nominating them or their peers expecting them to be there. The individual often has no say in the matter, and non-attendance in frowned upon.I am so tired of seeing terrible people, being admired, for being terrible people.

Ret is not really under represented in PvE or PvP for that matter. They are even the highest represented paladin spec in PvE

In terms of representation towards other specs:

12 dps specs are less represented than retri paladin in PvE
10 dps specs are more represented than retri paladin in PvE

Though seeing as paladin are the most evenly represented class ( all 3 specs are quite even ), that is not really suprising that retri paladins are not in the top represented specs as so many paladins play both holy and prot. Still that being said, more rets and holys and prots.

In PvP, only 7 specs are more represented than retri paladins.
That is, 26 specs that are LESS represented than retris. So they are not really under represented there either.

Nobody cares about those other specs. Do I seriously have to bring up the ratios of 2200+ players vs entirety? "Represented" is a damn useless stat by itself. PERIOD.

You can only really count the rets that are in for progression. I know for a fact Method and Blood Legion used zero rets. I asked Rigg on his stream why this was. He said, "Why bring a ret when you have a holy pally and warriors?"

You can only really count the rets that are in for progression. I know for a fact Method and Blood Legion used zero rets. I asked Rigg on his stream why this was. He said, "Why bring a ret when you have a holy pally and warriors?"

This is pretty much true. These are 25 mans as well that Revvo listed. There is VERY little room for a ret in 10 mans which is where 99% (guesstimate) of raiding is. No doubt a lot of those are very good ret paladins, but the numbers don't lie.

Ret is not really under represented in PvE or PvP for that matter. They are even the highest represented paladin spec in PvE

In terms of representation towards other specs:

12 dps specs are less represented than retri paladin in PvE
10 dps specs are more represented than retri paladin in PvE

Though seeing as paladin are the most evenly represented class ( all 3 specs are quite even ), that is not really suprising that retri paladins are not in the top represented specs as so many paladins play both holy and prot. Still that being said, more rets and holys and prots.

In PvP, only 7 specs are more represented than retri paladins.
That is, 26 specs that are LESS represented than retris. So they are not really under represented there either.

Glad you measure representation at scrub levels of gameplay, kind of like Blizzard does. Ret paladins have always had high numbers at mediocre levels of PvP... there are many reasonable explanations for this, such as the fact that Ret Paladins are a massive part of Warcraft lore... Uther, Tirion, Arthas...sadly neither you or blizzard has the analytical skills to understand that a popular spec isn't necessarily a good one. Blizzard also usually ignores the high rated PvP statistics and feed back from top PvPers... probably because it's embarrassing to interact with players who know their game better than they do.

You can only really count the rets that are in for progression. I know for a fact Method and Blood Legion used zero rets. I asked Rigg on his stream why this was. He said, "Why bring a ret when you have a holy pally and warriors?"

Too bad their warriors are as bad as their ret (BL), and Method have never had a decent ret in the past . But ye to stay on topic I really don't see rets being assets for serious 25man raiding atm, we do function pretty well in 10mans where you usually have max 1 other pally if even at all. Personally, since I switched to casual 10man raiding, I'd like to trade BoK for 10% meleehaste as utility we bring.